Conversion of Park Scientific format to im format (used by IM program)

Use the utility "afm-im" (formerly called "acon"). Works on a series of input file names of the form xxxxnnnn.hdf, where xxxx is a four character name (i.e. the date, in mmdd form), and nnnn is a four character file number IN HEXADECIMAL. For .HDF files (i.e. in upper-case) use AFM-IM. (For a PC, upper case and lower case are not distinguished). The output file names are in the standard format, yyyyyy.n where yyyyyy is the output file name of any length (e.g. 5oct98) and n in the file number in decimal (with no leading zeroes).

Conversion of Nanoscope III format to im format (used by IM program)

Use the utility "nano-im". Works on a series of input file names of the form xxxxxx.nnn, where nnn is a three character file number (in decimal). The Nanoscope data format contains a header in ASCII format at the top, followed by one or more images in binary. The length of the header is some multiple of 4096 bytes, with this value listed near the top of the header.

The first input to the conversion routine is the length, in multiples of 4096, of the header. This value will generally be 5 or 10; ff you input the wrong value here then you'll notice that the converted data file is either truncated or padded with extra values at the bottom, in which case try a different value (or just read the correct value directly from the header).

The second input to the conversion routine is the number of the image that you wish to convert, starting from 0. Thus a value of 0 will typically convert the AFM topography data, 1 will convert a phase image, etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE: in converting the z-values, the routine assumes that the full piezo range of 440 V extends over the 16 bits of the data values. This will be true if the data is stored in this manner. But, if the data is stored using only a fraction of this range (i.e. as it might be viewed during the acquisition), then the z-calibration factor in the converted data will be incorrect. To obtain the correct value, look in the header, near the bottom, in the first section listed as "\*Ciao image list". About 34 lines below that heading is a value listed as "\@2:Z scale:", in V. Take the value listed at the end of this line, divide it by 440, and the result will give the correction factor that you need to multiply the data by in order to get correct z-values.

Conversion from pgm format to uim format (used by VP)

Use the utility "pgm-uim". This is useful for incorporating images as output from Irfanview or IM into uim files which can be input into VP.

Conversion from pgm format to im format

Use the utility "pgm-im".

Conversion from "raw" format to uim format (used by VP)

Use the utility "r-uim". This is useful for incorporating scanned in images (stored in a "raw" format) into uim files which can be input into VP. Raw format is identical to PGM format, except that the leading few lines which specify the number of x and y grid points are stripped off. (For example, the top four lines of a 512x512 PGM with one byte per data point is : P5, 512, 512, 255).

Conversion from "raw" format to im format

Use the utility "r-im".

Conversion of Ocean Optics (cathodoluminescence) format to im format

Use the utility "cl-im". Works on a series of input file names of the form xxxxxxnn.OOI, where xxxxxx is a six character name (i.e. the date, in yymmdd form), and nn is a two character file number. The output filenames are in the standard format, yyyyyy.n where yyyyyy is the output file name of any length (e.g. 5oct98 or 981005) and n in the file number (with no leading zeroes).

Conversion of X-ray Diffraction ASCII format to VP format

Use the utility "xrd-vp".

Conversion of Dektak ASCII format to VP format

Use the utility "dektak-vp".

General conversion of tif, gif, ps files

On Unix, Solaris, use ps2ppm or ps2pgm to convert ps file to ppm (color) or pgm (grey-scale). Use ps2pgm -help to view options. This invokes gs. For example, use

gs -r60 -sDEVICE=pgm -sOutputFile=fname.pgm fname.ps

to do a conversion with 60 pixels per inch. Then use cjpeg to convert the ppm or pgm files to a jpeg file (useful switches -quality N, N=75 default, N=90 recommended; -gray, -gif?), or alternatively, use xv to obtain jpeg files. Example:

ps2pgm fig1.ps /tmp/fig.tmp
cjpeg -quality 90 /tmp/fig.tmp > fig1.jpeg

Use the utility "convert" which runs on the Unix machines. Unfortunately, this utility is available only under the old operating system, SunOS, and not under the new operating system, Solaris. The workstations stm1 and stm2 run Solaris, so they can't run "convert". To use this facility, use an ftp and a telnet connection to "metropolis" (a machine in the 6th floor cluster), convert your files, and transfer the result back to your host machine.

Usage: convert fname1 fname2, where fname1 is the input file name and fname2 is the output filename. The suffixes on the filenames specify the file format (e.g. convert fig1.ps fig1.gif).

Unpacking Files

use uuencode or uudecode, or munpack

Conversion of Latex to FrameMaker, Word, PDF format

This program allows conversion of .tex to .mml files, which are then converted when input into FrameMaker (run this with the command "maker"). Subsequent output from FrameMaker can be in a variety of different formats, including Microsoft Word. Subsequent conversion to .pdf format can be accomplished by saving in .ps format and then executing: distill fname.ps.

Usage: la2mml fname.tex

Tips:

at top of .tex file, use \documentstyle [12pt]{article}
change \author and \address commands so all authors and addresses are in a single \author sequence (with different lines separated by \\)
delete \date, \draft, \pacs lines
replace any \def definitions with the full sequences in the text (for chemical formulas, use format InAs$_{0.21}$P_{0.79}$)
in framemaker, change all fonts to 12 pt, except for 14 pt for title. Adjust margins on title, fig captions, etc. Leave subscripts in 9 pt font, but change superscripts to 12 pt in superscript style. It will still be necessary to modify references, and take care of small formatting problems (including modifying section numbers).
images must be imported in eps format, which can be generated using ueps (usage: ueps xx fname, where xx is the fraction to fill the gsize of 5 in x 7 in. Adjust this value to fit the image in that size. If xx is not specified, a value of 1.0 will be used).